Giving It All Up for Faith - An Interview with Eduardo Verastegui

Beliefnet interviews the star of 2006's Bella and one of the members of the great cast for the upcoming historical war epic For Greater Glory.

Eduardo Verastegui has been a model, a musician, a producer, and an actor. Known for his musical success and his celebrity status in Mexico, the star of 2006’s Bella plays a peace-keeping rebel in the upcoming film For Greater Glory. The movie, which has already released in his native Mexico to great fanfare, chronicles the Cristero war of the 1920’s. Starring alongside Andy Garcia, Eva Longoria, and Peter O’Toole, he joins in a battle for religious freedom in the wake of the government’s decision to persecute the public practice of Catholicism. Verastegui is a practicing Catholic himself, and his faith has become a major part of his work. This film has been especially meaningful to him, and he was kind enough to talk to Beliefnet’s Stephen Russ about the movie, his life, and the impact he hopes to have on those around him.

You are very picky about film roles you choose because of your faith. What drew you to this movie?

Advertisement

Let me go way back. I’m from Mexico, I moved to LA right when I was turning 28. After ten years of working really hard in music, film, and television I realized that I was not assuming the responsibilities that I had to assume as an actor. Sometimes you forget that whatever project you are involved in, whether you like it or not, it’s going to affect how people think, how they live, how they behave, how they dream, because media in general, and film and television, they have the power to touch people’s hearts and change their minds. Most young people in America spend more than eight hours in front of the media. Somebody told me that the statistics for average percentage between parents and children having meaningful conversations is only three to six minutes a day, but in front of the media more than 8 hours a day. So we know who is educating the youth – it’s the media. Now there’s nothing wrong with the media, it’s just a means, it’s how you use it that makes the difference. In my opinion I was poisoning our society by the projects I was involved with. Out of ignorance I ended up doing things that right now I don’t feel proud of and wish I could go back and redo, but I can’t.